she had installed the afflicted Miss Fennessy
(sister to the late occupant) and her scarcely less afflicted companion,
the Fairy Pig, in her back lodge. Miss Fennessy, being deaf and dumb, is
not perhaps a paragon lodge-keeper, but having, like her brother, been
brought up in a work-house kitchen, she has taught Patsey Crimmeen how
to boil stirabout _a merveille_.

FANNY FITZ'S GAMBLE

"Where's Fanny Fitz?" said Captain Spicer to his wife.

They were leaning over the sea-wall in front of a little fishing hotel
in Connemara, idling away the interval usually vouchsafed by the Irish
car-driver between the hour at which he is ordered to be ready and that
at which he appears. It was a misty morning in early June, the time of
all times for Connemara, did the tourist only know it. The mountains
towered green and grey above the palely shining sea in which they stood;
the air was full of the sound of streams and the scent of wild flowers;
the thin mist had in it something of the dazzle of the sunlight that was
close behind it. Little Mrs. Spicer pulled down her veil: even after a
fortnight's fly-fishing she still retained some regard for her
complexion.

"She says she can't come," she responded; "she has letters to write or
something--and this is our last day!"

Mrs. Spicer evidently found the fact provoking.

"On this information the favourite receded 33 to 1," remarked Captain
Spicer. "I think you may as well chuck it, my dear."

"I should like to beat them both!" said his wife, flinging a pebble into
the rising tide that was very softly mouthing the seaweedy rocks below
them.

"Well, here's Rupert; you can begin on him."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" said Rupert's sister
vindictively. "A great teasing, squabbling baby! Oh, how I hate fools!
and they are _both_ fools!--Oh, there you are, Rupert," a well-simulated
blandness invading her voice; "and what's Fanny Fitz doing?"

"She's trying to do a Mayo man over a horse-deal," replied Mr. Rupert
Gunning.

"A horse-deal!" repeated Mrs. Spicer incredulously. "Fanny buying a
horse! Oh, impossible!"

"Well, I don't know about that," said Mr. Gunning, "she's trying pretty
hard. I gave her my opinion--"

"I'll take my oath you did," observed Captain Spicer.

"--And as she didn't seem to want it, I came away," continued Mr.
Gunning imperturbably. "Be calm, Maudie; it takes two days and two
nights to buy a horse in these parts; you'll be home in pl